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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29889060">Wrong Side of Heaven</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingfanatic/pseuds/flyingfanatic'>flyingfanatic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Last of Us (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Divergent, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, everybody needs a hug, the Farm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:08:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>10,733</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29889060</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingfanatic/pseuds/flyingfanatic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t supposed to feel like this.</p><p>Ellie knew she was always going to be haunted, but she didn’t expect to feel like <i>she</i> was one of the ghosts.</p><p>There <i>has</i> to be more than this. </p><p>Canon divergence where Tommy never found out where Abby went after Seattle. Without his prompting, Ellie doesn’t go on her revenge rampage and instead has the time and space to deal with some of her issues without leaving the farm. To learn to really <i>live</i> in this broken world, not just survive it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>119</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. SUMMER</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A/N: While I’ve seen some fantastic post-game, post Santa Barbara fics on here, I haven’t read any canon-divergence from the point of the farm and really wanted to explore that narrative space more. The year Ellie could have had if she hadn't have gone to Santa Barbara. Any similarities are therefore coincidences, and please drop me some recs.</p><p>Flashbacks in italics.</p><p>EDIT: There is now a <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0xkvQ7ITpCyPhfBUxpHK5o?si=Ew0IOn8ES7O2CrM2WAqJWQ">playlist</a> for this fic.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>As the wind picked up the seed-heads bobbed, making waves that rolled through the long grass to break against the pines. A river snaked its way through the grass, a thin strip between the mountains that edged out the sky. All the colors were muted, as if there wasn’t enough paint left and it had to be watered down to spread too thin across the landscape. Even the sun wavered between the skinny clouds. </p><p>It was country that could swallow you whole, as if you had never been, and give you the freedom to be anyone you wanted, all in the same breath.</p><p>Something was coming towards the farmhouse on that breeze.</p><p>Dina watches the horse and wagon approach from the porch, bouncing JJ gently on her knee. He grabs at her hair and clothes, fussing at her stillness, but she can’t stop watching. Not until the driver gets close enough for her to make out Maria’s greying bob.</p><p>With a huff of relief that’s almost a laugh, she turns back into the house. A scrap of birch bark keeps JJ entertained while Dina gets the fire going. It was impressive he hadn’t burnt himself yet, with those grabby, inquisitive hands always trying to get into everything she was doing. One day he’ll get his first scar, but every day her prayer is <em>not today</em>.</p><p>“I don’t know why I let Robin bring you all those fancy toys, mister, when all you want is bits of stick and dirt. That’s what comes from spending too much time with Ellie, huh? Come on; let’s see what Auntie Maria wants. Yes, you can bring the bark if you want, but if you drop it, that’s it, okay? I am not playing Momma picks up everything goober throws for the next hour.”</p><p>By the time she’s got the fire going, a kettle of water set on it, scooped a wriggling JJ back up, and backed through the screen door, Maria is tying her horse’s lines to the porch railing.</p><p>“Hey, Dina.”</p><p>“Maria. Everything okay in Jackson?”</p><p>“Oh, yeah, yeah. This is more of what you would call a social call. Ellie about?”</p><p>“She’s out hunting. Should be back... soon.” Dina doesn’t add that the only definite is that Ellie will be back before dark. Probably.</p><p>“Well, then. You and me can catch up a little.”</p><p>“I already told Robin, we’re not—“</p><p>“—coming back to Jackson. I know, and I wouldn’t ask it of you.”</p><p>When Maria comes up the steps, it’s painfully obvious the stiffness of age is starting to get to her. Dina had always thought of Maria as a constant, a rock, the stability that Jackson needs. It’s hard to think of anyone else running the town.</p><p>With a slight smile, Maria runs her fingertips against JJ’s hair. “Why don’t you tell me how this little one’s been doing?”</p><p>Dina can do that. Talking about JJ is <em>easy</em>.</p><p>//</p><p>Coming back to the farm was always... hard.</p><p>It was better than Jackson, with the constant noise of people, their chattering and banging and existing keeping Ellie constantly on edge. Each sound a potential attack. Each movement a new threat.</p><p>The farm was still, and quiet, and Ellie could breathe.</p><p>Yet, even on the farm, there was Dina. Out in the woods, she didn’t have to think about what her face looked like. She didn’t have to worry about sitting against a tree for hours staring at the sky doing nothing, or screaming and crying and hitting anything she could find until she collapsed, so long as she came home with a couple of rabbits. She could be broken, and not have to watch the way her jagged edges hurt the woman she loves.</p><p>Coming back to the farm was always hard, but it’s even harder when she sees the strange horse tied to the porch.</p><p>As Ellie approaches the farmhouse, Maria steps out the door and down the porch steps to greet her. No hug, just a nod of acknowledgement. Ellie appreciates that.</p><p>“That’s some pile of junk you’ve got there.” Ellie jerks her head at the mower and rake piled on the back of the wagon.</p><p>“Always with the funny.” Maria pats a metal wheel. “It’s old gear, but it still works. There’s some good fields out here. Oughta be hayed. You’re gonna need to take this gelding, too. Japan’s one hell of a horse, but he’s too skinny for this kinda work.”</p><p>Ellie holds up her hand to let the horse sniff it. Sure, she’d ridden since Shimmer. Had to. But those horses had been a means to an end. She’d never named any of them. Never gotten close. This one... Maria’s clearly chosen him specially. A deep black, against Shimmer’s glossy brown. Thick-set, steady, where Shimmer was sleek, lithe. Built for speed.</p><p>Maria’s voice fades back into her awareness, like a distant sound in a tunnel. Ellie’s doesn’t know how long she’s been talking. How much she missed.</p><p>“—remember that big old Clyde the Joneses brought in... oh, six years back? He’s the father.”</p><p>Ellie nods. “I remember.”</p><p>Maria gives Ellie a frank look over. It doesn’t take a genius to see the way Ellie’s bones stick out even through the bulky jacket, nor to spot the haggard look around her eyes. “Ellie, I’ve seen what this does to folks. What it did to Tommy. I want you to know, if you ever need to talk—“</p><p>“I’m good,” Ellie says.</p><p>Maria isn’t the only one that saw Tommy become a shell of a man, inside and out. If Maria can’t help him... how the hell does she think she can help Ellie?</p><p>“Okay then. Thank Dina for me for the tea; I’d best be heading back before it gets dark.”</p><p>She pats Ellie’s arm briefly on her way past, and it’s only once she’s out of earshot that Ellie realizes Maria never told her the horse’s name.</p><p>//</p><p>Dina slips the rope off the rabbit’s foot and examines the snare critically. Ellie’s knot-tying is improving. It had been one of the few things that had actually helped: handing Ellie some rope and showing her a knot to practice, over and over again. It had kept her calm. Given her something to focus on.</p><p>“Gonna teach you how to set these traps one day, little goober,” Dina tells JJ, who ignores her in favor of industriously trying to pull off Ollie’s ears. “Although you’re probably gonna end up with Jesse’s big hands. Good for fighting, but you need delicate fingers for work like this. But you got fat fingers. Yes, you got fat fingers!”</p><p>A few cuts to the rabbit’s back legs followed by a long slice up its stomach allow Dina to pull the skin off in a series of practiced motions. She works quickly to gut the carcass and slips it into a waiting bucket of clean water to start on the next one.</p><p>She’s carefully easing out its intestines when Ellie appears around the side of the house. With a slight smile on her face, Ellie leans against the wall and watches Dina work.</p><p>“Hey, babe.”</p><p>“Hey. What’s up?”</p><p>“Can you come give me a hand unloading the gear Maria brought? Some of it’s kinda heavy.”</p><p>“I knew it. You’re only with me for my muscles.” Dina flexes, earning an appreciative chuckle from Ellie.</p><p>“Yep. Just need you to do all the work around the farm while me and potato start our band.” Ellie picks JJ up and swings him over her head to make him laugh. “Don’t worry, we’ll still let you be our groupie.”</p><p>“How kind of you.” The second rabbit joins the first in the bucket of water. “Okay, just let me get this cleaned up.”</p><p>They’ve always worked well together, her and Ellie. Just a few words, back and forth, as they ease the machinery off the wagon and into the lean to beside the barn.</p><p>As Dina is readjusting JJ in the sling, Ellie tucks her arms around Dina’s waist, chin resting gently on her shoulder. Together, they sway back and forth, gently enough that JJ quietens, stubby limbs curling up inside the sling. They just stand there for a moment, looking back up at their house.</p><p>Dina can feel Ellie. Not just as a comforting, warm body next to hers, but in one of those precious moments when Ellie seems to really be <em>there</em>, with Dina.</p><p> “I remember the first time I brought you here,” Dina says.</p><p>//</p><p>
  <em>Ellie’s arm had still been in a sling, and Dina’s only freshly out of bandages, when they headed back outside the walls for the first time. They both needed to get out, even if Ellie spent half the time grousing about the fact that she wouldn’t be able to carry a rifle. Jackson was just... too much... after Seattle.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The walk to the farmhouse took them twice as long as it should, but Dina wanted to walk. <strong>Needed</strong> to walk.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Found this place on patrol. It was what I pictured, when I thought about having a farm. Only a few miles from Jackson, but far enough away that you can’t see the town. I’ve checked it out, it still looks pretty sound. Got a barn for the sheep and everything.” She turned to Ellie. “I mean, if you still want...”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dina led Ellie inside the house. There were some weak spots on the deck that needed replacing, and peeling wallpaper that Ellie ran her fingers over, but it was mostly in good shape.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ellie poked the broken chairs in the dining room with one foot. “It’s kinda empty.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dina smiled. “Then we’re just going to have to fill it up.”</em>
</p><p>//</p><p>When Ellie rolls over, her hands find empty sheets. She knows immediately that Dina hasn’t just got up to go pee. Her spot in the bed is cold.</p><p>JJ’s crib is empty.</p><p>Frantic, Ellie goes from room to room, banging the doors out of her way, but every room is empty.</p><p>“Dina? <em>Dina</em>!”</p><p>Her shoulders hit the walls as she hurries outside, past the garden beds that have no plants in, past the clothesline with nothing hanging from it.</p><p>Even as Ellie hurtles towards the barn, she knows what she’s going to find.</p><p>No sheep. No horses. No Dina. No JJ.</p><p>She runs, and runs, and runs, and calls out their names, but there’s nothing. No answer.</p><p>She’s alone.</p><p>//</p><p>When Ellie wakes up, she shoots bolt upright in bed. A faint mutter from Dina’s sleeping form next to her does little to quieten the pounding of her heart. There’s nothing for it but to sit there, clutching her chest and gulping down air, hoping that she can get her panicked breaths back under control before she wakes anyone.</p><p>Her hand hovers, wanting the comfort of Dina’s warm body next to hers, but she can’t do it. She can’t bear to pull Dina out of the sleep that slips through Ellie’s hands like smoke.</p><p>Instead, she slips into a sweater and pads silently down the stairs. She’s not sure where she’s going, or why, until she finds herself in the barn.</p><p>Sitting against the door to the black gelding’s box stall, Ellie’s feet just touch the edge of the moonlight streaming in through the open door. She lets herself focus on the warm greasy smell of the sheep, the soft sounds of chewing and the gentle animal snores.</p><p>She doesn’t sleep, but it’s somehow restful.</p><p>//</p><p>When the first rays of sunlight edge their way into the grey sky, Ellie gets to her feet. If Dina wakes up and Ellie’s not there, she’ll come looking for her. She always does.</p><p>Ellie barely ever slept, but lying next to Dina was peaceful enough. Comforting. While Dina had nightmares from time to time, a touch from Ellie would calm her. When JJ fussed to be fed in the night, Ellie would bring him to her so she could feed him without having to get up. They’d fall asleep together on the bed and Ellie would just watch them. Dina’s breaths coming low and steady, with JJ’s little body tucked in next to her.</p><p>Even before he was born, when the first signs of dawn would appear through the window Ellie would tip-toe downstairs to rouse the banked fire, quietly gather cups and tea, and take a mug up to Dina. It had become one of their routines. A way to help Ellie at least pretend to follow the rhythms of day and night. A small way to take care of Dina, to try and balance all the ways she was holding Ellie together.</p><p>“Morning,” Ellie murmurs when she sets the tea down on Dina’s side table with a click.</p><p>A sleepy murmur is all she gets in return, so Ellie lays down behind Dina and begins to kiss her shoulder, and then the back of her neck. Another murmur, but Dina’s eyes stay closed. It’s not until Ellie runs her fingers up Dina’s side that she finally speaks.</p><p>“’S too early.”</p><p>Ellie kisses just below Dina’s ear, then whispers, “I brought tea.”</p><p>“You’re the best.”</p><p>“I know.” Ellie’s fingers play along the edge of Dina’s shirt, lips returning to her neck. “We can’t both laze around in bed all day, getting soft.”</p><p>“Soft? Soft!” Dina rolls over and grabs Ellie’s wandering hand. “Watch it. I could still take you out!”</p><p>“Oh, yeah, sure, as if you could—“</p><p>Dina swings her leg over and is straddling Ellie faster than she’d expected. A brief, laughing fight for control of Ellie’s wrists ensues, but Dina easily gets them pinned over Ellie’s head.</p><p>“Okay, okay, you win.” Ellie can’t stop herself from smiling in front of Dina’s triumphant expression.</p><p>Dina lowers her face until Ellie can feel her breath against her cheek. “Say it again.”</p><p>“You win!”</p><p>Dina’s kisses wander along Ellie’s jaw, light and teasing. “Say that I’m badass and the best fighter ever.”</p><p>“Yeah, right.”</p><p>“Say it!” The kisses turn to a light nip of retribution.</p><p>“You’re totally fucking badass, jeez.”</p><p>“Say I’m gorgeous.”</p><p>Ellie laughs. That’s an easy one. “You’re gorgeous.”</p><p>“Say you love me.”</p><p>“Eh, I don’t know about that....”</p><p>Dina punches her lightly in the shoulder.</p><p>“Ow! Okay, okay! I love you.”</p><p>“Good.”</p><p>Dina leans down and finally kisses Ellie full on the mouth. Despite Ellie’s insistent tugs she refuses to let go of her wrists, keeping Ellie at her mercy. At first Ellie doesn’t really mind, letting her mind drift away into the soft play of Dina’s tongue against hers. Then Dina lifts up again, and grins as Ellie tries to recapture the kiss.</p><p>A shift, and Dina has both of Ellie’s wrists in one hand. It’s a grip she could easily escape from, but something about this - about letting Dina take complete control - eases a knot of tension inside Ellie’s stomach. The kisses Dina presses to her neck aren’t just about driving her hog wild. They’re permission to be, here and now, in this moment, and shut out everything else.</p><p>Sometimes, the only time Ellie really feels like herself is when Dina lays her hands on her.</p><p>She’s just started to push Ellie’s shirt upwards when a cry erupts from behind them.</p><p>“Uh-oh. Duty calls.” Dina hops off Ellie, lifting JJ out of his crib and into the easy crook of her arm; exactly the same spot where she had held him for the very first time.</p><p>//</p><p>
  <em>“He’s here. He’s actually here. He’s actually fucking here.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah, Ellie, that’s a whole baby.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I can’t believe how tiny he is.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You tell my vagina that.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Okay.” Ellie leaned down to do just that and Dina swatted her away with a foot, laughing.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“So, what are we gonna name him? He can’t be ‘potato’ for the rest of his life.” Ellie stepped back to inspect him critically. “Although, he does look a lot like one...”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Just the next eight days. Then I was thinking...JJ.” Dina watched Ellie for a reaction: there was a little flicker as her face blanked. “Talia said that naming a baby for someone that... was gone... it’s a way to keep their memory alive. Honour them.”</em>
</p><p>//</p><p>“Dina! <em>Dina</em>!”</p><p>The laundry scatters on the ground. A shout like that means now, and fuck whatever else is happening. Dina sprints toward Ellie’s cry and bursts into the house, panicked, breathing hard, expecting to find some disaster.</p><p>Instead Ellie is crouched on the ground, cheering on JJ as he shuffles around the room on his bottom.</p><p>“Dina, look! Look at our little man! That’s independent locomotion, that is!”</p><p>Completely absorbed in JJ’s attempts to push himself around the room, Ellie seems completely unaware how hard Dina is breathing. It was a short run, but Dina is far from back to her old level of fitness.</p><p>“Uh-oh. Nothing is safe anymore.”</p><p>“I dunno.” Ellie tilts her head. “It doesn’t look like a super-efficient way of getting around.”</p><p>“Yeah, he would start moving around by scooting on his butt, the goober.”</p><p>“I can’t believe I get to see this,” Ellie says quietly.</p><p>Dina crouches next to her, and rubs a hand gently across Ellie’s back. “You <em>deserve</em> to see this.”</p><p>//</p><p>Her pressure through the lines is gentle. The black gelding responds to Ellie’s softest cues, pulling the gently clacking mower along with a steady determination. When the last swath of grass falls he stops at a soft whoa, and waits patiently for her to disengage and lift the blade into its travelling position before they head back to the barn.</p><p>Ellie reckons she could set off one of Dina’s explosive traps and he would just stand there, flicking his ears against the flies.</p><p>He’s far from an automaton, though. They’d almost run over a bee’s nest the day before, hidden in the long grass. He’d stood there and refused to budge until she came to see. They’d mowed around it.</p><p>After she eases the bridle off his head, he nudges her with his nose companionably.</p><p>“You know what? Joel would have liked you.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A/N: Any constructive criticism about characterisation is welcome—I'm just starting to get to know these characters.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. AUTUMN</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The paint on the door frame flakes off when Dina leans against it. Another job on the long list of things that need doing up around the farmhouse, along with the old wallpaper and the kitchen cabinet that’s missing all its shelves. Small things. They’ve got time.</p><p>Time enough to stand and watch Ellie distract JJ into eating a whole bowlful of mashed sweet potato.</p><p>It’s not that he doesn’t like it. Sweet potato seems to be one of his favorites, a close second to applesauce. The problem is keeping him focused on the job at hand, instead of deciding it would be more fun to throw the mush on the floor. Or the parent feeding him. Either works.</p><p>“This is the starship <em>Kobayashi</em> requesting permission to land, Captain Ryan in command. She’s coming in for landing, she’s coming in real low, oh, shit, she’s gonna crash, hold on!” Ellie waggles the spoon back and forth, but at the last second eases it into JJ’s open, grinning mouth. “Damn, nice catch, Ensign Spud. Your piloting skills are coming along nicely.”</p><p>Dina hadn’t even realized she’d made a sound — some scuff against the floor, or quiet sigh — until Ellie’s head whips around to see where the noise came from. There’s a split second of tension before Ellie registers it’s Dina, then she smiles. </p><p>Just a second.</p><p>Dina knows she gets them, too. She’ll hear a noise or catch a movement out of the corner of her eye that she can’t immediately place and instinctively get ready to fight. Then, just like that, it’s gone. No threat, no reason for her heart to be going a hundred miles an hour.</p><p>She’s gotten way too good at pretending like it’s not.</p><p>“Uh-oh. I don’t think I can cope with another astronaut in the family.”</p><p>//</p><p>
  <em>Ellie ran around the small green in erratic figure-eights, arms spread out and behind her.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Shshshshsh... we have lift-off.... Rrrrrrr... liftoff on Apollo 11... Prrrrrr... tower clear... Whoosh!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Flinging her arms out as she fell, Ellie collapsed on the ground next to where Dina was sitting. She stared up at the sky, the biggest grin Dina had ever seen plastered across her face. It’s not the blue sky overhead, or the clouds drifting above them, that captured Ellie: she was seeing beyond them, to the piercing sunlight on the other side, to the wide and impossible black.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“That was most badass birthday ever.”</em>
</p><p>What an adorable dork. <em>“You’re such a fucking dork.”</em></p><p>
  <em>“You’re just jealous you didn’t get to go to the moon.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dina chuckled. “Oh, really?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Yeah. And I’m gonna go again some day. For real.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Y’know, if anyone’s crazy enough to do it, it’s you.” Dina lowered herself down to lie next to Ellie. “Hey, do you know what planets like to read?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Comet books!” Ellie double-punched the air in victory.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Oh, fuck you, you’ve heard this one.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Of course I’ve heard it, it’s a space joke.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“One day, I’m gonna tell you one you’ve never heard before.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Ellie turned to look at Dina, open promise on her face. “One day, I’m gonna bring you back a moon rock.”</em>
</p><p>//</p><p>The stones clack quietly together as Dina lays them on Jesse’s headstone. She’d suggested Ellie bring something, but she couldn’t bring herself to. She didn’t feel like she had the right to stand in front of Jesse’s grave, holding his son, and mark her visit as if she was supposed to be there.</p><p>As if it was okay that he was dead. As if it wasn’t her fault.</p><p>Robin and Mitchell had never blamed her, but that just made it worse.</p><p>She hands JJ back to Dina and walks away through the graves of all the other people that had lived here. The place everyone in Jackson would end up in one day. If they were lucky.</p><p>They think that the things they’re doing — the town and the wall and the patrols and the guns — are protecting them. </p><p>But they’re not. Not really.</p><p>Ellie still doesn’t believe in luck, but she knows that their sense of security is false. That everything they have can fall apart in an instant. Without warning. Without reason.</p><p>How dumb of them, to believe like that. </p><p>How dumb of her, to wish she could.</p><p>But she can’t go back. That’s gone. The person she was and the way she thought her life was going to be are just... gone.</p><p>When she closes her eyes, she sees Joel’s bloody face. When she opens them, she sees his grave and hears his grunts of pain. Her breathing becomes heavy and she feels the world narrowing down around her, she can feel the weight of it closing everything out, like water rushing into her lungs but it’s at the edges of her vision...</p><p>Dina’s touch jerks Ellie out of the hole she’s spiraling into. </p><p>“Ellie. Come back.”</p><p>Ellie rubs a hand over her face, threads her fingers through her own hair and down the back of her neck. “Yeah.”</p><p>“You still okay to go see Tommy?”</p><p>“No... no. I just wanna go home.”</p><p>“Okay. Okay.”</p><p>//</p><p>The gelding follows her home, steady on a loose line. Ellie almost forgets that he’s there as she picks her way along the track, mind drifting like the sunshine in the trees.</p><p>Strapped to his saddle is the deer she’d killed. It’s the biggest animal she’s even tried to bring down since the boar. Looking through the sight on her Remington, she could tune out the idea that she was trying to shoot it. She saw it, gently cropping the grass, and then she was field dressing it, as if it was a completely different animal.</p><p>The thought of the boar’s screams, the sound that had sent her running only months before, lurks at the back of her mind like a bruise.</p><p>The deer had crumpled immediately.</p><p>She doesn’t look directly at it as she unstraps the carcass from the saddle, then eases the saddle from the gelding. She doesn’t even look at the gelding until he’s back in his stall. He whickers at the sight of the hay and stretches his neck out, trying to eat it before Ellie’s got it in his manger, and his eagerness makes her chuckle.</p><p>“Easy, easy, I’m moving as fast as I can.” Ellie finally stuffs the hay in the rack, then brushes stray strands and seed heads off her front. “You’re always hungry. I’m kinda jealous. It’s all so simple for you, huh? Wake up, eat, work, eat, go to sleep again. You don’t much care what we’re doing, or why, so long as your dinner’s waiting when we come home.”</p><p>Ellie brushes out his coat as he eats, letting her mind drift again in the soft sound of the bristles on his fur. It’s incredibly meditative, sweeping over every section of his body, working methodically from head to tail and then down the other side. Her mind turns over, slowly, like the hum of a conversation just far enough away that she can’t make out the words.</p><p>She’s almost finished when the words rise up inside her.</p><p>“I want... I wanted my life to mean something. <em>Really</em> mean something. I don’t want to be just another dead body, rotting away out there after some stupid, pointless death. Some stupid, pointless life. I couldn’t... I couldn’t save the world. My immunity... worse than useless. I couldn’t save... just <em>one person</em>. I couldn’t even kill one stupid fucking woman... It all just fucking happened, and I couldn’t stop it. I never got to choose any of it, it just fucking happened. Everyone that died, everyone that I... and here I am, and what? I’m supposed to have this family, this place, and it’s supposed to be okay? I’m just supposed to carry on?”</p><p>Ellie drops the brush and leans against the gelding’s side, sobbing.</p><p>“Why me? Why do I get to live? Why am I still here, and he’s not?”</p><p>//</p><p>There are variations to Ellie’s exhaustion that Dina doesn’t think Ellie is even aware of.</p><p>Sometimes she’s slow. Crawling through her day, painful to watch. Conversations are hard on those days, when Ellie barely seems to have enough concentration to keep standing, let alone form sentences.</p><p>Sometimes she’s hyper — usually right after being able to actually get a few hours sleep — bouncing from one thing to another with an attention span that’s worse than JJ’s.</p><p>Then there are days like today, when Ellie’s single-minded determination hones to a point, and she can spend hours focused on a single task as if there was nothing else in the world.</p><p>Dina would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy watching Ellie, in a t-shirt and a light sweat, work her way through the pile of firewood. </p><p>The dish water goes cold while Dina’s attention is entirely focused on the shifting muscles of Ellie’s arms and back as she swings. Her hands slide up and down the axe handle in a practiced motion with each strike. Dina drifts into thoughts of those hands on her, of feeling the muscles of Ellie’s back under her own hands. </p><p>She’s knocked out of her reverie when the egg timer goes off. She claps her hand on it, desperate to silence the obnoxious buzz before it wakes JJ. Bread making had never really been a thing she thought she would be into, but since they moved to the farm she’s taken a quiet joy in baking. Sure, her first attempts had been more brick than loaf, but this latest shot looks good, even if she says so herself.</p><p>When she looks back out the window, Ellie is leaning on her axe. It’s more than just a break for breath; Ellie’s head is lolling, and she’s swaying gently. Too much exertion on too little food.</p><p>Sometimes Ellie is a prime idiot.</p><p>Dina walks outside and quietly takes the axe from her. “Come on, you. I just took some bread out the oven. I’m gonna cut you a couple of slices, put that strawberry jam Robin made on it, and you are gonna eat them. And then” — Dina presses herself against Ellie to whisper in her ear — “you are gonna use the sugar rush to rail me into the couch.”</p><p>A grin slowly spreads over Ellie’s face. “Where’s the spud?”</p><p>“Down for his afternoon nap.”</p><p>Ellie wraps her arms around Dina’s waist and starts to kiss her neck. “What if I wanna do you first?”</p><p>Dina closes her eyes, allowing herself to enjoy the attention momentarily before pushing Ellie away. She’s not going to pass up motivation that might actually get a decent amount of food into Ellie. “Eat! Eat, first, or no fun for you.”</p><p>//</p><p>Ellie hadn’t realized she’d fallen asleep until Dina wakes her by throwing her pants at her. </p><p>“The fucking sheep have bust through the fucking fence. Six feet high with barbed wire on the top and they still get through.” </p><p>“What?” Ellie blearily tries to put her pants on back to front without realizing. Impatient, Dina grabs them, turns them around, and shoves them back at Ellie.</p><p>“Sheep. White. Go baa. The sheep are out and if we don’t get them back soon the idiots are gonna wander into one of our traps and we’ll have barbecued mutton attracting every infected in earshot. <em>Come on.</em>”</p><p>//</p><p>The sudden appearance of hands around her waist almost makes Dina drop her screwdriver. She’d been concentrating so hard she hadn’t heard Ellie walk up behind her, despite the creaky old floorboards.</p><p>Ellie doesn’t say anything, just stands there with her chin on Dina’s shoulder to watch her work.</p><p>Now that every Jackson patrol is taking a radio out the station in the city is manned 24/7, and a battery ought to last a week if they just do an evening check-in. That is, if she can get her Frankenstein creation to reach that far. The whole radio is cobbled together from cannibalized, mismatched parts and the amplifier Maria brought should do the trick, if only Dina can get it hooked up right. </p><p>It was worth having her bring it, if only for the excuse to have her stop by. Maria is the only person Ellie will stay with for the entire visit. For everyone else — Tommy, Robin, Cat — Ellie will make some excuse after an hour, tops. But she’ll sit and talk with Maria about nothing very much for a whole afternoon, until the dipping of the sun prompts Maria to leave.</p><p>After Maria goes, Ellie seems different. A little more present. A little more grounded. As if Maria’s presence soothes all the things that eat at Ellie and allow her back into her body. Into the now.</p><p>It never lasts long, but Dina enjoys it while it does. She relaxes into the stillness, into the peaceful way Ellie leans against her, and thinks a brief prayer of thanks.</p><p>//</p><p>JJ is practically bouncing as Dina hands him up to Ellie, making the “babababa” sounds that mean he’s super excited. Ellie has to hold him pretty firmly to get him safely settled behind the saddle horn, with his tiny hands beating the leather. </p><p>Dina lays a hand on Ellie’s leg. “You sure you’re up for this? I can take him.”</p><p>“Yeah. We have a good time. Just ‘cause he’s a potato doesn’t mean he has to ride like one.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Just... something someone said to me once.”</p><p>The world had kept spinning after Winston died, and after Riley, and Tess. It even kept going after Joel died, so maybe she should keep moving, too. Even if she doesn’t feel it anymore. Even if every moment she spends thinking of nothing but JJ, or Dina, is eaten up by the hours she can’t stop seeing blood and hearing screams. Maybe she has to make the good moments worth it.</p><p>Maybe the only way she’ll start to feel real is by pretending.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A/N: Sorry this one was a little shorter, but the moments just fit in that way. The next chapter is longer.</p><p>There is now a <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0xkvQ7ITpCyPhfBUxpHK5o?si=Ew0IOn8ES7O2CrM2WAqJWQ">playlist</a> for this fic.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. WINTER</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A/N: This chapter is kinda heavy. Everybody cries heavy. It was both hard to write, yet also easy, in that words-just-come-spilling-out kind of way.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“<em>He got the action; he got the motion. Yeah, the boy can play... You do the walk, yeah, you do the walk of life,</em>” Ellie sings to JJ as she helps him waddle across the living room. It means bending over awkwardly to hold his hands and her back protests, but the pain is worth every tentative step he makes. “That’s my clever little potato, look at you go!”</p><p>When they reach the couch Ellie makes to turn, but JJ stretches pudgy hands out for the cushions. Once Ellie’s got him settled against the couch she collapses on her back in the middle of the floor, groaning at the relief.</p><p>She shouldn’t feel this fucking old.</p><p>It might be nice to be old, if it means getting to lie on the carpet, in the warm living room, watching JJ try to shuffle his way along the front of the couch. That look of sheer determination on his face is so familiar...</p><p>It flickers.</p><p>It’s Jesse’s face, a hole where his cheek used to be.</p><p>It’s gone as fast as it came. Ellie wouldn’t even be sure she had seen anything at all, if it wasn’t for the rapid spike in her heart rate.</p><p>JJ’s hand slips. He falls.</p><p>It flickers.</p><p>It’s Joel’s face. Joel lying on the ground.</p><p>Ellie shakes her head to get rid of the image, then tries to reach JJ.</p><p>JJ cries out.</p><p>It flickers —</p><p>//</p><p>
  <em>She’s on the floor again.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She can’t get up.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She can’t make a sound.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She can’t look away.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She can only stare at the caved-in mess that used to be Joel’s head.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He’s motionless. Still. Silent. Gone.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>There’s no noise. No one else there.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Can’t move.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Can’t speak.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She’s alone.</em>
</p><p>//</p><p>Dina’s voice fades in like the crackle of her radio in foul weather, the room coming into focus like the early morning fog rising off the river. Even when the world comes back far enough to start making out the words, Ellie can still smell the blood.</p><p>It takes another heartbeat until she can move, until she can look up at Dina, bouncing JJ on her hip. </p><p>When their eyes meet, Dina crouches in front of her to lay a hand on her knee. Ellie lays her own hand on top of it, but she can’t stay still. She’s grabbing at Dina, gripping the length of her arm, squeezing to make sure she’s real. Dina’s real, Dina’s there, Dina’s warm, Dina’s alive.</p><p>Then she looks at JJ.</p><p>Ellie can see the tears, still damp on his face. Hear the sniffles Dina hasn’t coaxed out of him yet. Across the left side of his head, the red mark where he hit the carpet. No permanent damage done. At least, not this time.</p><p>When Ellie reaches out for him, he buries his face in Dina’s shoulder.</p><p>Ellie drops her hand from Dina’s arm. The world goes fuzzy again, but this time it’s her own tears making everything blur. Dina says something, but Ellie doesn’t hear it.</p><p>She’s shuffling away across the floor, refusing to let herself reach for the comfort of Dina. There’s no way she deserves that, not after what she let happen to JJ. She always knew she would never be enough, but she can’t let the cracks in her hurt him. Not him.</p><p>Ellie struggles to her feet and flees to the woods.</p><p>//</p><p>The trees Ellie can bring down with her axe might be skinnier than she is, but the bundle she’s chained together would be difficult for a person to get moving, let alone all the way back to the farm. The gelding manages the load easily enough on the flat snow, but even he slows when they hit the hill about a furlong shy of the fence. </p><p>By the top of the hill he’s blowing heavily, so Ellie stops to let to get his breath back. She moves up to lean against his shoulder while his breathing slowly returns to normal, and the ear that flicks towards her seems welcoming. Open.</p><p>“Had a bad one yesterday. Haven’t got lost that bad for a couple of months, but that wasn’t the worst part. He’s one of the best things that’s ever happened to me, that little spud, but I keep fucking it up. She won’t say it, but I know — I know I shouldn’t be trusted with him. He should be worth it. He should be enough for me to just make myself better. But — fuck — I just can’t. It’s not fucking working.”</p><p>Ellie looks back up at him but he’s just staring off down the track, nostrils flared with exertion.</p><p>“Yeah, I know. No English.” Ellie sighs as she runs a hand through her hair. “I know I should talk to someone who can actually talk back, but... I don’t know how. I try, I really fucking do. But then I look at Dina, and I see — I see — she just has so much hope. She believes I can be fixed, y’know? That someday I’ll be better.”</p><p>Ellie shifts her grip on the lines, fingers tightening around the leather. She holds that tension, forces herself to focus on it, forces herself to feel what’s truly there.</p><p>“I can’t bear to tell her I’m broken for good.”</p><p>//</p><p>Ellie wonders if it will always be like this. The memories coming back, every year, to cut her to shreds... She doesn’t know which would be worse: the idea that it was always gonna hurt like this, or that one day it wouldn’t.</p><p>Afterwards, she hates herself. Hates how fucking prickly she’s become.</p><p>But that only comes after. When her hand flies out to knock the plate from Dina’s hand, all she can feel is the anger. Anger at herself, for being so messed up that she needs to be looked after, needs Dina to force her to eat because she can’t. Anger at Dina, for being so patient it makes Ellie want to scream.</p><p>Dina stands in front of her, the ruins of the dinner she’d made for Ellie on the floor between them, and Ellie <em>hates herself</em>.</p><p>“What the fuck, Ellie?”</p><p>Ellie has nothing to say.</p><p>Dina sighs, then crouches down to clean up, and Ellie just stands there, as useful as a fart in a jam jar. </p><p>No. No. This is her mess. She should be the one cleaning it up, not Dina, but when she drops to help, Dina pushes her away.</p><p>“It’s fine, I’ve got it.” </p><p>“I’m so fucking sorry¬—“</p><p>“It’s okay.”</p><p>Ellie bounces back to her feet, the tension snapping up her body like a loose wire in gale. “It’s okay? It’s okay?! It’s not fucking — it’s not okay. It’s not okay. How can this be okay? I’m not fucking okay. You just keep picking up after me, keep going, and — How are you okay!?!” </p><p>Dina doesn’t answer, not at first. She finishes calmly sweeping up the shards of plate and food into a pan and places it on the table with a click that’s louder than it should be, leaving Ellie panting. When Dina speaks her voice is measured, purposeful.</p><p>“I’m not okay. I think about all the shit we’ve been through <em>every day</em>, and it hurts. But I can’t keep getting lost in the past ‘cause if I let that happen... I’m lost. I have to look towards the future. <em>His future</em>. A future with you in it.”</p><p><em>A future with her in it</em>. Even after all this time, Ellie sometimes finds it hard to believe Dina really wants that. Really wants her, the way she is now, and not the person Ellie used to be. Surely it would be so much easier for Dina if Ellie wasn’t here. If Dina could go back to Jackson. Back to her old life. If she didn’t have to spend every day trying to hold Ellie together.</p><p>“Ellie, <em>talk</em> to me.”</p><p>“I... can’t.” Ellie turns to walk away, but Dina grabs her arm to stop her.</p><p>“No. No! You do not get to keep shutting me out like this. I am here, every fucking day, every nightmare, watching this eat you from the inside out, and you are not fucking walking away from me this time.” The desperation inside Dina softens, pressure relieved from a taut balloon. Her hands go around the sides of Ellie’s neck and Dina leans their foreheads together. “Just tell me what’s going on in that stubborn skull of yours. Just try. <em>Please</em>.”</p><p>Ellie stiffens — so close to pushing it all away, it would be so much easier to push it all away than to feel it — but the soft brush of Dina’s calluses whispers a promise to the clenched fist of the pain in her chest.</p><p>“Okay.” </p><p>Ellie rests her hands on Dina’s wrists to ease them down. She has to step away — to turn away — to not be so damn close to Dina. It’s just too hard to fall apart when she’s watching.</p><p>“I don’t... I don’t think I ever told you where I went, the night bef — after you kissed me the first time.” Ellie brings her fingertips together, looking down at them but not really seeing them. “I talked to Joel. About... mostly stuff that doesn’t matter now. But... I wanted to — I said I was gonna — fuck — that I was gonna try to forgive him. For the Fireflies. And then he went and fucking got himself fucking killed and I never... I never...”</p><p>Ellie’s sobs descend into wheezing breaths, leaving her struggling to get the words out.</p><p>“Ain’t it weird that — that somehow it’s so much easier to fight when there’s an enemy in front of you? When you’ve got one — one of those assholes in front of you, it sucks — it’s terrifying and I’d do anything to be somewhere else, but — but all that matters in that moment is dealing with the fucker that’s trying to kill you and then — and then I’m here and I just — I just don’t know how to fight when there’s nothing — nothing to fight. Instead I’m fucking it all up: you, and JJ, and everything. I’m fucking it up so bad.”</p><p>Ellie cries, then, in a way she hasn’t in far too long, and Dina holds her for what feels like the passing of an eternity. </p><p>“Ellie... y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say so many words in one go.”</p><p>That makes Ellie laugh through her sobs, roughly brushing the tears away with a sleeve. “You’re the worst.” </p><p>“I know.” Dina rubs her back and kisses the top of Ellie’s head. “I got you.”</p><p>//</p><p>The worst storm of the winter hits a week later. </p><p>It hits the barn hard, almost burying it in drifts of snow that take most of the day to dig through. It rattles the windows and threatens to rip off the shingles. The noise frightens JJ, and Ellie tries to remember what it was like to be frightened of storms.</p><p>When Dina comes in from the evening feed, shaking and stomping off snow, Ellie’s moved all their blankets and pillows downstairs into the living room, building a nest in front of the fire.</p><p>“It’s as cold as a snow omelet out there,” Dina calls as sheds her outside clothes. “Where are you?”</p><p>“In here,” Ellies replies from the living room. “Be quiet.”</p><p>“What are you doing–“ </p><p>Dina walks in and sees what Ellie has done. The makeshift bed, the roaring fire, the sleeping baby in her arms. Her crooked smile at the sight of Dina’s stunned expression. </p><p>“I just got him to sleep.” Ellie gingerly lays JJ in his crib. “Come on. I made falafel.”</p><p>She’s left it in the pan she fried it in, just close enough to the fire to keep it warm while she waited for Dina. They settle together on the duvet and Ellie hands her a piece, eyes fixed on Dina as she chews.</p><p>“Not bad, considering you’re a shit cook.” Dina wants to scream. She hasn’t had falafel since she was ten. “How did you know...?”</p><p>“How to make it? Found it in one of your cookbooks. Wanted to do something for — for the other day. To show you I’m — I’m sorry.”</p><p>For the first time in too long, her Ellie is back. The Ellie who played sappy guitar songs to her in front of campfires, the Ellie who wrestled with her until they were both red and panting, the Ellie who grinned the first time Dina’s lips touched hers, the Ellie who called her babe and sweet and held her close as if Dina was the most precious thing in the world. The Ellie who leaned in and kissed her and changed her life.</p><p>Dina eats her falafel, then climbs into Ellie’s lap and reminds her that she loves her.</p><p>//</p><p>Later, Dina leans on her side and looks down at Ellie. She’s got that inscrutable look on her face again, but then Ellie reaches up to wind a strand of Dina’s hair around her fingers as if it’s the most fascinating thing in the world.</p><p>“What about this one?” Dina thumbs the scar that cuts through Ellie’s right eyebrow. “You never told me where that came from.”</p><p>Ellie chuckles. “Not much of a story. Not even sure what made it. I got hit during a food riot, back in the Boston QZ. Could have been the butt of a soldier’s rifle. Could have been a half brick thrown by a protestor. Maybe I just got knocked over. I don’t know. Just woke up with my head bleeding. Wrong place, wrong time.”</p><p>“Can’t stay out of trouble, can you?”</p><p>“Never. What about this one?” Ellie’s fingers have found the streak on the outside of her left thigh and are tracing it tenderly.</p><p>Dina lays her hand over Ellie’s, stilling the stroking of her fingers. “I got that one — I got it when Talia was killed.“  </p><p>//</p><p>
  <em>They came in the night. They came silently.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The last word Dina ever heard Talia say was, “Run.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>There was just enough time for one thing. One thing Talia could have done. She could have reached for a weapon. She could have fought.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Instead, she pushed Dina away and told her to run.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Dina hadn’t. She’d been stupid. She’d tried to save Talia.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She’d jumped on the back of one of the Ravens. Tried to grab for his sidearm. He’d slashed her leg, then tossed her off.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She’d barely made it to the safety of the trees before the first shots ring out.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Leave the kid. She’s not who we came for. And don’t waste the bullet: she’s probably gonna die out here anyway.”</em>
</p><p>//</p><p>“Just — I just want you to know that I get it. I understand what it’s like — what it felt like to lose Talia. To want to hurt the people that hurt her, who hurt me. To want it so bad you can see it, taste it. But you can’t let it become more real than reality. She — she lived to protect me. She died protecting me. If I threw my life away, what would hers be worth?” Dina grabs hold of Ellie’s hands. “I can’t lose you, too. I just can’t, okay? And I know it’s hard, I know it hurts, but I need you to try. I need you to keep going, so I can, too.”</p><p>Ellie stares at their linked hands. Maybe last year she would have made that promise and thought she meant it. Now...</p><p>“I’ll — I’ll be right back.”</p><p>Ellie kisses Dina, then half dresses and pads away to retrieve her guitar. When she returns, she settles with her back against the couch and begins to play.</p><p>“<em>Are you scared? Because I am, too.</em><br/>
<em>This fear in my head has been there for too long.</em><br/>
<em>We sleep now with the light on,</em><br/>
<em>But shadows make shapes in the light and I don't know what they might be.</em>”</p><p>Ellie continues to strum gently, entirely focused on the guitar and the precise movements through the short instrumental. A tear slips down her face, and Dina suppresses the urge to reach out and wipe it away. It’s been too long since Ellie played for her, <em>to her</em>, in that completely absorbed way that leaves Ellie’s face open to the feelings pouring straight out of her. She always could sing more than she could say.</p><p>“<em>Are you cold? Because I am, too.</em><br/>
<em>Cover your toes with a jacket and your bones with a blanket I will.</em><br/>
<em>She tells me that I'll be alright </em><br/>
<em>And for a second it feels like I believe her ‘cause I forgot the way that I felt.</em><br/>
<em>And I'm trying, yeah, I'm trying to be brave.</em><br/>
<em>I’m just trying to be brave</em>.”</p><p>The howling of the storm becomes background noise. All Dina hears is Ellie, playing soft songs in the firelight until long after Dina’s fallen asleep.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A/N: The song Ellie sings to Dina is “Brave” by Riley Pearce. The acoustic version is on the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0xkvQ7ITpCyPhfBUxpHK5o?si=Ew0IOn8ES7O2CrM2WAqJWQ&amp;nd=1">playlist</a> for this fic, if you wanna give it a listen. The bit Ellie sings to JJ is from Dire Strait’s “Walk of Life”.</p><p>It might seem as if Ellie’s gone backwards in this chapter, but I think she would have to as she finally faces up to her trauma and feels her feels.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. SPRING</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content Warning: This chapter references the scene in which Ellie kills Nora. The reference is brief and <span class="u"><strong>not</strong></span> graphic.</p><p>The only part of this chapter that might be slightly graphic is the birth of a lamb in the first section. Mostly we are in a lighter place than last chapter.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“No, I can do it. I <em>want</em> to help.” </p><p>Ellie rolls up her sleeves, washes her hands, and then steps into the lambing pen. </p><p>Last year Dina had handled the difficult births, sending Ellie running for hot water and towels with JJ tightly strapped to her front. Dina had been a rock while Ellie panicked. This year JJ is upstairs, sleeping through the night while Dina and Ellie slip out to check on the sheep.</p><p>Of course, Ewe-gene would choose oh dark stupid the day after Dina sliced her hand open with a knife to get a lamb stuck. Always with the brilliant timing.</p><p>Dina leans over the side of the pen and rests a hand on Ellie’s arm. They exchange a glance: Dina searching Ellie’s eyes for the certainty Ellie still struggles to find. </p><p>“I’ll talk you through it.”</p><p>“Okay.” Ellie takes a few deep breaths to calm herself down, then settles into the straw behind the struggling mother. Thank fuck sheep sound nothing like people when in distress. Small mercies.</p><p>“Here goes nothing,” Ellie says, then reaches inside the ewe. “Fuck!”</p><p>“Yeah, the contractions hurt. Just imaging what that’d feel like around your head.”</p><p>“Ugh, no thanks. Okay, I think I got something.”</p><p>“Is it the head? Can you feel any feet?”</p><p>“I think it’s the head. Feels to big to be a foot — it's super fucking slimy — yeah, no feet. Just a nose.”</p><p>“Okay. You’re gonna have to push the head back in so you have enough room to bring the feet forward. You think you can do that?”</p><p>When Ellie looks back up at Dina’s concerned face, she almost falters. This is why she’d stayed out of the lambing pens last year: she’s convinced she’s going to get it all wrong. That at the end there will be nothing but a dead lamb, and it will all be her fault.</p><p>Dina says nothing — doesn’t want to push too hard — but Ellie closes her eyes and just concentrates on her breathing. In, out, keep it steady, keep it slow. She summons the image of JJ, laughing, and smiles to herself.</p><p>“I can do it.” </p><p>Pushing the lamb back in, against the ewe’s contractions, leaves her arm shaking with the strain, but she manages it. Both its feet are back, and she struggles to ease them forward, convinced with every movement she’s going to snap the thin limb by accident.</p><p>“Got it!”</p><p>“Good. Now, she’s tired, you’re gonna have to help her. Pull on the lamb, but not too hard, and with her contractions.”</p><p>“Okay.” Ellie exhales to steel herself. “Come on Ewe-gene, you can do it.”</p><p>At first, nothing happens. Ellie dreads that she’s not pulling hard enough, that she’s pulling too hard, that the lamb has already died, that she’s fucked it all up like she thought she would. Like she knew she would. Then, all in one go, the lamb comes sliding out of its mother. </p><p>Ellie wipes off its nose and mouth, then shoves it close to Ewe-gene’s head, so the mother can start licking at its face. </p><p>The world revolves around the still, small, white shape. Suddenly it bleats, making Dina and Ellie whoop in unison and hug each other over the fence.</p><p>“Okay, ew, you’re gross!” Dina laughs as she pushes Ellie away again.</p><p>Exhausted, covered in slime, and barely able to feel her right arm, Ellie should want nothing more than to go inside, wash and sleep. Instead, she cannot stop staring at the new lamb wobbling around its mother. The ewe makes a strange sound; a low pitched, back of the throat, staccato noise. A call just for her new baby.</p><p>There it is. A life that would never have existed if Ellie hadn’t been there to help.</p><p>It has to start somewhere.</p><p>//</p><p>With a sigh, Dina leans the wheelbarrow back against the barn.  Maybe they’ll put off having cows for another year or five — she’s not sure they could cope with the volume of mucking out cows would involve.</p><p>At the very least, the cows will have to wait until JJ’s out of diapers. Washing eight of those cloth monstrosities a day eats into way too much of their time and tolerance for foul smells. To imagine that people used to just throw diapers away and get a new, clean one. The sheer luxury.</p><p>There’s a lot about the old world that seems almost too good to be true.</p><p>Knowing your kid is going to be able to grow up safe would be high on Dina’s wish-list. She could live to be as old as Eugene and never be able to shake the picture of Robin’s face when they got back from Seattle. The idea of someone crumpling had never really been a concept she’d been able to envision before. There just wasn’t enough time to fall apart like that.</p><p>Robin had crumpled: fallen to the floor as if she’d been shot, too.</p><p>It hadn’t fully made sense to Dina until she’d held JJ. Thoughts of him getting hurt haunt her no matter how hard she tries to push them away. She just keeps telling herself Jackson is safe. They’re safe here.</p><p>Dina checks her traps every day, just to make sure.</p><p>When she walks in the house, it’s suspiciously quiet. JJ and Ellie time usually involves yelling and the sound of the two of them rocketing around the house. Occasionally things get broken.</p><p>She finds them in the living room. Ellie’s on her back, socked feet protruding over the armrest of the couch. One arm is hooked around JJ, splayed across her front.</p><p>Lambing season exhaustion has them all napping.</p><p>Ellie has been sleeping better, but mostly during the day. Whenever Dina wakes in the night it seems Ellie is already awake and waiting for her. For now, it’s still kinder to let Ellie sleep whenever she can. Dina settles into the chair with her book, occasionally sneaking glances over at the couch while she reads.</p><p>The foul smells are worth it for these two goobers.</p><p>//</p><p>Ellie hadn’t really noticed the plants her first year on the farm. Sure, she’d dug and planted and watered and harvested whatever Dina had told her to, but she’d never thought about what she was doing. It was just another job.</p><p>Her fingers pass over the small tomato plant in its pot, bending the stalk just far enough to watch it spring back into place, unharmed. A few weeks ago, it had been a tiny thing just poking through the soil, seed husk still attached. Now it’s grown whorled leaves and, when Ellie slips it out of its pot, she can see the root system threading its way through the soil.</p><p>Maybe this summer she’ll be able to taste the sauce Dina makes.</p><p>Eating is still... hard. She still has to think about it, to remind herself she needs food. Her appetite might not have returned, but she doesn’t see her ribs when she pulls on a fresh shirt anymore. That’s got to be worth something.</p><p>The little plant wobbles slightly as Ellie eases it into a hole, but she quickly gets earth piled up around the base.</p><p>She drops the next plant when the explosion happens.</p><p>Dina’s traps.</p><p>Chickens scatter as Ellie rushes into the house. Her Remington is leaning just inside the kitchen door where it always sits, always close. Dina appears from the other side of the house, her Browning already in her hand.</p><p>Their eyes meet.</p><p>“Go!” Dina says. “I’ll make sure JJ’s safe; I’ll be right behind you.”</p><p>//</p><p>When Ellie gets to the site of the explosion, there’s not much left.</p><p>One runner is still alive but missing its legs. It’s slumped against a tree. Must be freshly turned to still look so... human.</p><p>One arm is reaching out, and part of Ellie knows it’s reaching for her, but all she can see is an arm raised in a futile attempt at protection. It screeches and grunts and pants, but all Ellie can hear is screaming.</p><p>It comes on slowly, creeping up from the back of her knees, up through her gut until her mouth is dry and her palms are sweat-slick. The rifle falls from her hands.</p><p>The sounds of the forest around her fade, and all she can hear are cries of pain.</p><p>//</p><p>She’s in the basement.</p><p>There’s a pipe — <em>stick</em> — in her hand.</p><p>She raises it —</p><p>//</p><p>Ellie drops the stick just as Dina arrives. The runner continues to writhe, untouched, while Ellie braces her hands on her knees, looking as if she’s about to be sick.</p><p>“Please...” </p><p>Ellie’s eyes meet Dina’s. </p><p>Dina nods. </p><p>Ellie turns away so all she knows is the sound of the shot. Dina touches her shoulder, and Ellie collapses against her chest.</p><p>//</p><p>It takes over a week before either of them can untense again.</p><p>Dina finds Ellie sitting on the back porch in the middle of the night, Remington in her lap, and joins her.</p><p>Ellie finds Dina crying over the sink and wraps her arms around her.</p><p>Ellie had never spoken about that night, outside of the vague reference to making her talk. She doesn’t say much about it now. Mostly, when she wakes, she just says she’s sorry, over and over, and cries.</p><p>Not wanting to send Ellie spiraling, Dina had kept all her worries about JJ bottled up. Now she shares them. They plan traps and patrols and JJ’s future training, while they watch him push a plastic truck with only two wheels left around the yard.</p><p>//</p><p>The limbo lasts until an unfamiliar horse comes up the track, pulling a small wagon.</p><p>“Shit, shit, shit, I forgot.” Dina tears through the house, leaving a confused Ellie in her wake.</p><p>“Forgot what?”</p><p>“Scott’s gonna teach me how to shear! Gotta get the sheep in!”</p><p>There’s nothing more ridiculous than a sheep on its butt, Dina thinks as Scott guides her through the series of bizarre holds. Snowy bleats a protest every now and then, but mostly just accepts her fate, even when Dina has to stick the ewe’s head between her knees and bend both their bodies double.</p><p>Twelve sheep later, she feels as if she might be getting it. Sure, her right hand’s about to fall off and she doubts she’ll make it back up to the house without falling over, but there’s a neat stack of sacks filled with wool in Scott’s wagon destined for the new mill in Jackson.</p><p>Maybe this winter she’ll learn how to knit.</p><p>//</p><p>It still seems odd to Dina to have enough scraps to feed them to chickens. Usually she’ll just toss them in all at once over the fence, but Ellie likes to go in with the chickens. She makes sure the best treats are spread out, rebuking and cajoling the hens in the same breath.</p><p>Dina giggles at the sight of one of the hens perching on Ellie’s foot. “That’s it, now. You can’t move, you’re a chicken roost.”</p><p>“Oh, you think that’s funny, do you?” </p><p>With a half-cocked grin, Ellie picks up the chicken and puts it on her head, making both Dina and JJ descend into fits of laughter. Ellie starts holding her limbs out in poses, and the chicken continues to perch, just shifting her grip as Ellie dances around.</p><p>“It’s gonna shit down your neck if you’re not careful.”</p><p>“Good point.” Ellie relents and places the chicken gently on the ground.</p><p>“Don’t worry, I’d still love you even if you did have chicken shit all over you.”</p><p>“You’re so romantic.” Ellie reaches for the now empty feed bucket just as the chicken poops on her shoe. “Aw, gross!” JJ roars with laughter. “Yeah, laugh it up, snotball.”</p><p>Dina barely suppresses her own amusement. “Mother-Clucker’s got a point. You could do with some new shoes: those ones are kinda falling apart. You could make some out of those hides you tanned. Some nice fuzzy rabbit slippers, perhaps? With little ears on?”</p><p>Ellie shuffles, staring at her feet, pointed together.</p><p>“Joel found them for me,” she mutters. “He used to always come back from patrol with something new for me. Shoes, or comics, or a tape. He was always so fucking awkward, with his little knock.”</p><p>Dina rubs Ellie’s shoulder. These small moments of Joel — good moments with Joel, bad moments with Joel — have only just started to resurface, and always make Ellie distant.</p><p>“Maybe they’ll last a little longer.”</p><p>//</p><p>The next time Maria visits, she finds Ellie in the barn picking out the gelding’s hooves.</p><p>“You named him yet?”</p><p>“No.” Ellie offers the gelding her hand, and he nudges it gently with his nose. “He’s just... himself.”</p><p>It’s an odd thing, but naming him would ruin the delicate bond they share. Make him less hers, and more part of the world.</p><p>Once they’re settled on the back porch, Maria talks about the usual. Things that are going on back in Jackson. Who’s arguing with who. The number of new buildings they need to put up. Changes to the patrol routines. Repairs to the walls and watchtowers.</p><p>Ellie offers the occasional thought — how often a patrol should cover a particular route, or the best spot to set a new observation tower — but mostly lets Maria’s words wash over her. It probably does Maria as much good as it does Ellie, just to chew things over in a way that really doesn’t matter.</p><p>Her favorites are Maria’s stories about the up-and-coming patrolmen. Fuck, they were never that clumsy, where they? No, not her and Dina. Enough time on the outside cures clumsiness far too quickly.</p><p>“You could help, you know.” Maria raises a conciliatory hand at Ellie’s expression. “I still ain’t asking you to move back. Just stop by the odd afternoon and teach the new kids how to shoot without dropping their guns on their feet. You don’t have to answer me now. Just think about it, okay?”</p><p>//</p><p>Dina adjusts JJ on her hip after pushing through the door — he’s getting heavy. “What did Maria have to say?” </p><p>“Nothing.”</p><p>“You do not have nothing face. You have something face.”</p><p>“It doesn’t matter.”</p><p>“Our great and glorious leader deigns to visit you, and it doesn’t matter?”</p><p>“She — she wanted me to come and help with some stuff back in Jackson. Training some of the patrolmen. I told her I’d think about it, but... it’s a bad idea. She’s barking up the wrong cactus.”</p><p>“I think you should do it.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“It’d be good for you. I know my face is spectacular, but you should probably talk to people other than me from time to time before you forget how. And it’d be good for JJ to spend some time in daycare with the other kids. Oh, and I don’t know what Astrid’s done with their main radio, but there is something seriously weird going on. They should not be getting that level of distortion over—”</p><p>The whistle of the kettles interrupts Dina before she can get in full flow. She hands JJ over to disappear into the kitchen and comes back holding two cups of tea. They sit on the grass and he totters around chasing butterflies while they watch the clouds.</p><p>“Uh... constipated chicken.”</p><p>“Why constipated?”</p><p>“’Cause it’s all scrunched up, look.”</p><p>“Sure, sure. Okay... oh, that one looks like a dick!”</p><p>“And that’s better than constipated chicken?”</p><p>“Anything’s better than a constipated chicken.”</p><p>It’s peaceful. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than it was. Sometimes, better is the best you can hope for.</p><p>Sometimes, better is enough.</p><p>Better can be everything.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A/N: No chickens were harmed in the writing of this fic. If they are used to humans they will happily use anything – foot, arm, shoulder, head – as a perch. And then poop on it.</p><p>So, there we go. Where they could have been after a year on the farm. Thanks for coming along and reading this little story. If you left a comment, you for sure made me do the happy dance, and if you want to yell with me some more, I'm on Tumblr under the same handle: <a href="https://flyingfanatic.tumblr.com/">flyingfanatic</a>.</p><p> </p><p>  <strike>I might be thinking about making this a series with their later years, no promises.</strike></p>
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